Jury Trial Strategy – Personal Injury Trials & Criminal Defense Trials

Trial Strategy Blog for personal injury and criminal defense cases – Doug Goyen, Attorney – (972) 599 4100

We’ve all seen and heard how the insurance industry has taken over the healthcare system in America. Seems we blindly just allow this to happen. I watched Under Our Skin yesterday and it shows how this system we have accepted where insurance companies call the shots on our healthcare that is available is slowly but surely eroding our healthcare that is available, allowing less and less treatment, and going after any doctors who try to buck the system.

Under Our Skin: This is one of the most interesting films I think I’ve ever seen. It put the finger directly on what is really wrong with our system of healthcare, and who is really pulling the strings. I caught it on PBS last night. It didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know based on my practice as a trial lawyer and dealing with both the insurance industry and the medical industry. But I don’t think anything I say can make the point as clear as this movie makes it.

Where you can see Under Our Skin:
Official Website: http://www.underourskin.com/
This is a link to the TV schedule (when it is supposed to air): http://www.underourskin.com/tv
Its also on Netflix if you subscribe to that: http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Under_Our_Skin/70118373?trkid=2361637#height2656
You can rent it on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/movie?v=RlvDVTKbNMQ&feature=mv_sr
You can rent it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Under-Our-Skin/dp/B004I0H71I/ref=pd_vodsm_B004I0H71I
Here’s the trailer:

The movie shows how the insurance industry has taken over our healthcare, both on the medical side, and the legal side. Their interest is to pay as little as possible, and to pocket at much as possible. They don’t “produce” anything, their only motive is as a financial institution . . . to make money. Yet we’ve allowed this industry whose interest is to pay as little as they can to take over our medical system and make healthcare decisions for us, and our legal system in controlling who gets their licenses yanked, who can be sued, who can be criminally prosecuted.

This film puts the microscope on Lyme Disease and shows exactly how the insurance industry has taken over medicine and how doctors are allowed to treat patients, and how doctors are prosecuted (by doctors having their licenses taken, and even being sued by insurance companies). Most Doctors dare not try to go outside the “guidelines” for treating Lyme Disease that the insurance industry has put in place for fear of what can happen to them. The film shows what happens to Doctors who do try to go outside those guidelines (licenses yanked, sued, etc.).

This is a slippery slope. If the insurance industry can do this to Lyme Disease, they will try to do it to other health conditions that cost the insurance industry more than they wish to pay. They control the money doctors can make, they control the healthcare that people can get, they control the legal system remedies that are available to doctors and people who are suffering due to this system.

This film shows how the tail wags the dog in our healthcare system.

Not sure the origin of this (I thought it was Muhammad Ali, the boxer), but I like the message. Enjoy:

I ain’t got to be
What nobody else want me to be
And I ain’t afraid to be
What I wanna be
So does that make me
A rebel?
A revolutionary?
Well then so it be
That’s cool with me
Cause I refuse to live life
On terms that don’t satisfy me
And I refuse to answer to anybody
Who wants me to be
“More like them” and
“Less like me”
You see
I am my own man
Built by the hand of God
And so to not be me
Would be quite odd
It’s by his hand
That I can accomplish all
And with His strength
I’m able to rise when I fall
It is through His gift
That i have vision to see
That’s why I ain’t got to be what nobody else want me to be
And I ain’t afraid to be
What I wanna be

Example of jury selection in a CPS case.

DWI Closing argument in a Michigan DWI case – example of real case

This is a series (fictional), but Gerry Spence participated in this docudrama as the defense lawyer of Lee Harvey Oswald – this was made back in 1986 it looks like. There are 30 parts – the following is part 1 (the prosecutor’s opening), it is followed by part 2 (Gerry Spence’s opening), and you can follow the playlist on down to the end – as far as you want.

Prosecutor’s opening

Gerry Spence’s opening (Defense – of course)

Cross examination of police officer in DWI case.

Opening statement of Defense lawyer in lawsuit about a defective tire leading to a rollover – death of 11 year old child.

Cross examination of a witness in a business law case. Craigslist & Ebay in lawsuit against each other.

Cross examination of plaintiff’s doctor in Big Tobacco case. Plaintiff’s spouse had died of lung cancer. Wrongful death allegation in case.

Jack Swerling – criminal defense lawyer – cross examining a witness for the government in a criminal trial.